The effect of task demands on the neural patterns generated by novel instruction encoding.

Autor: Sobrado A; Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain., Palenciano AF; Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain., González-García C; Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain., Ruz M; Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain. Electronic address: mruz@ugr.es.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior [Cortex] 2022 Apr; Vol. 149, pp. 59-72. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jan 31.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.01.010
Abstrakt: Verbal instructions allow fast and optimal implementation of novel behaviors. Previous research has shown that different control-related variables structure neural activity in frontoparietal regions during the encoding of novel instructed tasks. However, it is uncertain whether different task goals modulate the organizing effect of these variables. In this study, we investigated whether the neural encoding of three task-relevant variables (dimension integration, response set complexity and target category) is modulated by implementation and memorization demands. To do so, we combined functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), an instruction-following paradigm and multivariate analyses. We addressed how and where distributed activity patterns encoded the instructions' variables and the impact of the implementation and memorization demands on the fidelity of these representations. We further explored the nature of the neural code underpinning this process. Our results reveal, first, that the content of to-be-implemented and to-be-memorized instructions is represented in overlapping brain regions, flexibly using a common neural code across tasks. Importantly, they also suggest that preparing to implement the instructions increases the decodability of task-relevant information in frontoparietal areas, in comparison with memorization demands. Overall, our work emphasizes both similarities and differences in task coding under the two contextual demands. These findings qualify the previous understanding of novel instruction processing, suggesting that representing task attributes in a generalizable code, together with the increase in encoding fidelity induced by the implementation goals, could be key mechanisms for proactive control in novel scenarios.
(Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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